This invention relates to animal feed and, more particularly, to animal feed in hard, block form.
In range land, for much of the year, only dry grass is available for providing carbohydrates and some protein to grazing animals. This grass does not provide the requisite amount of protein and fat to enable grazing animals such as range cattle to put on good gain and finish. Accordingly, there is a significant need for an economical, high energy, nutrionally balanced, hard, climatically stable, animal feed block which can be placed on range land for utilization as animal feed.
It is known in the art to prepare hard, animal feed blocks by, for example, (a) compressing and molding a mix of hay, straw, grains and the like, with or without molasses, to a desired shape and weight, or (b) by heating and evaporating water from a molasses-fat-urea mixture, usually under vacuum conditions, with the resulting mix setting, on cooling, to a hard form. In U.S. Pat. No. 3,420,672 (Appleman, 1969) it is disclosed that gelatinized starch can be utilized as an emulsifying agent in the preparation of solid, animal feed emulsions containing molasses, fatty material, urea, phosphate, bentonite or kaolin, and other ingredients and additives.
Copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 668,225 is directed to animal feed blocks and the preparation thereof wherein molasses and a water absorbent clay such as attapulgite clay are subjected to high speed shearing action to obtain a dispersion thereof; and thereafter the dispersion is mixed with a water binding agent such as calcium sulfate hemihydrate, a hard metallic soap former such as calcium oxide, a fatty acid soap former such as yellow grease, and one or more of the following: natural protein source such as cottonseed meal, non-protein nitrogen source such as urea, a phosphorous source such as phosphoric acid, and fat such as tallow to thereby obtain a nutrient composition which sets to a hard block.